1.
We build a fence. Day after day. In rain and heat, in wind and cold, in more rain. Just you, me, and a refrain: hold, measure, cut, level, drill.

Day after relentless day.

Maybe there was a call and a duty, in the way that you sometimes hear a voice call softly and think how nice, but the next day your head is a throbbing ache of demands and you think kindness is a chore that stings like penance.

Still, we keep on: build, break away, return.

Coming along we say, nodding, not too much more.

But there is much more, always more.

2.
This is not metaphor.

This isn’t political commentary, or an afterschool special with a redeeming end. The fence is real.

This fence is our focus and also our division. Because I grumble and you steam. I don't hold the board steady or cut it exact and you hold back because you are too nice to bellow, but the holding in hurts too. This fence is my weakness, your purpose, my dither, all of it swirling so that the boards aren't straight and I'm dizzy with everything we’ll never complete.

3.
It's fine, I say, meaning it is not fine.

I’m too hot, too cold, too tired, and, really, the world wears me down. I shrug and stray, mutter and sulk.

Still, I’m here, again and again. And so are you.

This fence won't end but neither will we.